Fives Times After Goodbye
by misscam
Summary: Twenty years after she said one goodbye, she wonders if this is a second. [TenMarth, implied TenMartha. Sorta.]


Fives Times After Goodbye  
by Camilla Sandman

Disclaimer: BBC's characters. My words. No profit is made, and no offence intended.

Author's Note: This fic is set in an AU future. I wouldn't try to guess at what happens on the show, so I've settled for being vague. Happy birthday, Saz! Apologies for this being un-betaed, but I was determined to post it on the day.

II

There is no mistaking the sound of the TARDIS - ancient, timeless, sounding a little bit like someone forgot to oil it. Even so, Martha is rather convinced she is hearing things - right up until the TARDIS materializes in her living room and the Doctor steps out, smiling at her as if they only saw each other yesterday.

Then again, for him twenty years might be yesterday.

"Martha Jones!" he beams. "I was... Hang on, did you redecorate? Blimey, you are fast. Thought about entering the Universe Games? You might get a bronze. Well, if you lose your affinity for green."

She stares at him and he stares back for a moment, eyes very brown, browner than she remembers.

"I haven't been gone five minutes while you tried to calm your mum," he says after a moment.

"No."

"You're not my Martha."

She doesn't want to lie, and she doesn't want to say the truth either, so she just looks at him and he seems to finally take her in too. No grey in her hair yet, but he's bound to notice a few lines on her face. She knows she hasn't aged bad. But she has aged.

"Twenty years since I last saw you," she says to his unasked question. "And yes, you did pick me up again that time, about ten minutes too late."

She remembers that, and how he seemed a little confused and giving her worried looks for a whole day. Now she knows why and almost feels like laughing a little.

He really is terrible at lording over time sometimes.

"Better go and not change history, then," he says, something that might be relief in his voice. He takes a step towards the TARDIS, but goes very still with a hand on the door, not looking at her at all. "Twenty years?"

"Twenty years," she confirms. "Doctor Jones for seventeen."

He smiles so beautifully for a moment she almost feels it like a kick to the stomach. He is so genuinely happy for her she wants to smack him. It's almost like being a puppy an owner is particularly proud of.

That won't do. That won't do at all.

She reaches him in five long steps, taking a firm grip on his head with both hands and snogging him because dammit, she wants to and not everything has to be on his terms.

He's going to find out that soon enough. She could warn him, could tell him, could spare him from... No. She can't, not really. He would stop her, for one thing. It's already happened, for another. She doesn't really want to end time and space.

She would like to end the pain that sometimes flashes across his face like lightening, though, the pain she imagines she can almost feel in the pulse vibrating against her lips.

She feels his lips tug at her bottom lip for just a second, and then he frees himself, looking strangely untroubled. Maybe it's just companions he has a problem snogging. Maybe it doesn't count now that she's an ex.

Maybe he just doesn't want to get slapped.

"See you, Martha Jones," he says, and slips into the TARDIS and seconds later, the TARDIS is slipping into time and she's left touching air.

Twenty years after she said one goodbye, she wonders if this is a second.

II

It's been three weeks when the TARDIS materializes in her kitchen, the sound almost making her drop the cooked chicken she's taking out of the oven. She has just about enough time to place it down gracefully before he comes barrelling out, a bullet that never quite seems to lose its velocity.

She tries not to look stupidly happy to see him again.

"You just yelled at me!" he opens with, looking quite affronted.

"Good. I didn't do that enough," she says calmly. "What was it this time? General gitiness or specific gitiness?"

"I just neglected to mention one little, tiny, wee, minuscule fact."

"Maybe you should try talking to me more," she suggests, even knowing the result is already in and the referee is probably just going to give her a red card. Knowing him, it'll probably be a red card he nicked from the World Cup finale at Wembley.

"I talk all the time!" he protests.

"No. You natter. You rarely talk."

He looks as if he might protest it, then seems to think again. "You like my natter."

"You're completely bonkers."

He grins. "I know!"

She just rolls her eyes. "So this one little, tiny, wee, minuscule fact - that would be the one that almost got me killed and my hair turned into a headdress? And then you didn't even offer comfort food."

"What? This was the one little, tiny, wee, minuscule fact that almost got you killed and fed to a Bergaki."

Ooops, she has time to think. Oh well, there are so many of those she shouldn't be expected to keep them straight. He has no right to look like it's to be expected. No right at all. (Come to think of it, being barfed up by a Bergaki is very, very hard to forget and she's tried. But still!)

"That was just as non-minuscule," she replies. "Even if you did give me chicken after."

"Did I?" He looks a bit perplexed, as if the thought hasn't even occurred to him.

Just as she's beginning to think she might like to yell at him right now, he seems to get some sort of brilliant idea. She's learned to read that face a long time ago. It did seem to occur at a regular basis, after all. Not as regular as he pretended it did, but still.

"You're brilliant, Martha Jones!" he beams, giving her a huge hug that leaves her breathless and a little squished and then just vanishing into the TARDIS as if he's late for an appointment.

Only when the sound has all but faded does she realise he's stolen half the chicken - and she has a pretty good idea at what he's going to do with it. He'll probably even excuse it with being essential to not change history.

He's very good at being a right rude bastard, she's always known, and remembers the chicken as quite tasty.

II

There is no scientific study into how high the risk of having a heart attack is when waking up to the Doctor sitting in your bed, legs crossed, but if she's any test subject to go by, Martha's pretty sure it's bound to rival Mount Everest.

"Hi!" he says brightly, and she tosses a pillow at him the moment she stops making noises like a wheezing squirrel. He just lets it bounce off and seems not to think it too bad a welcome.

"Is your other identity Mr Boo, Secret Scaring Agent?" she asks as irritably as she can manage. In the night gloom of the room, she can only make out the outlines of his smile, but she doesn't turn on the light. It feels almost more real here in the dark, with everything else shrouded away.

"Nah," he says calmly. "That's Neil Gaiman's."

"Why are you here, anyway? I'd say you just can't stay away from me, but you already got a me."

"I brought you a chicken," he says, as if that explains everything.

"To replace the one you stole a month ago?"

"I had no choice! I couldn't change time, that would've ended the universe!"

"Hah," she replies,and he raises an eyebrow at her. "Do people really fall for that line?"

"You never do, Martha Jones," he says almost fondly, "even when you should and end up nearly ending the universe and leave a terrible mess for me to brilliantly sort out."

"That was just that one time," she protests. Well, just that one time she thinks he's been through so far. The other times she doesn't need to mention.

"Two so far, and I'm still counting. That giant koala invasion at Andromeda Eight..."

"One and a half," she corrects him. "That was half your fault for getting koala-napped."

"One and a half," he agrees. "Very nice koala, though. She made a supreme eucalyptus pie."

"So why are you really here?" she asks after a moment, because chickens are cheap excuses and she's not about to take clucking from him.

"I hurt you," he says after a moment, looking at her with a strangely intent gaze.

"Did you mean to?"

"Yes."

"That's not all right, then," she says. "What are you here for, reassurances that's quite all right, just don't do it again? You do it again."

'And I'll call you on it,' she adds in her head, but she suspects he already knows that, and if he doesn't, he deserves to learn it. Hard.

"You're all right now," he says after a moment, and she realises that's what he's here for - to know she is living the great life he needs her to, for all he's let her see and all she's run through with him, hand in hand. She doesn't quite know why it's so important, but she can suspect.

"I'm great now," she says, leaning close. He doesn't seem to notice what she's doing until she has two hands on his feet, pining him down, bringing her face so close she can feel his breath. "You owe me a shag, though."

"What?" He sounds half perplexed, half affronted.

"All those teasing looks, all those references to your brilliant powers, that tight suits and wild hair... That's like offering a menu and then giving no meal." She gives him a very speculative look, and it seems to take him about two seconds before she's not quite serious.

Two seconds enough to kiss him, feel his lips part under pressure and his cheek scratch hers just a little.

"Martha..." he says a little breathlessly. "Not companions... I don't..."

"You didn't," she assures him. "We never... I mean, I only fancy humans. But I make exceptions for aliens bringing chicken."

This time, he kisses her back, not protesting her fingers pushing his dress jacket off or her knee brushing against his thigh. He pretended to be human once, she remembers. Maybe he can pretend a little again, or she can pretend she's a little bit alien. (Her grandmother always did act a little odd, come to think of it.) Enough for a match in the dark, where no one can see properly anyway.

She more feels than sees in the absence of light, and every noise made is very loud and very quiet at the same time. She puts her palms against both his hearts; he exhales. He kisses the inside of her elbow; she inhales. She tosses off the nightgown; he swallows. He kisses the lines of her back; she mutters with impatience. She climbs on top; he sighs. He moves; she gasps. She moves; he is silent until he isn't and she bites down on his lip hard enough to know he's going to have a delightfully swollen lip for a day.

She knows she'll find it quite sexy.

In the morning, she wakes to him not there - but the chicken is, clucking almost irritably on top of her kitchen sink.

II

It's two months before she sees him again, and then he's just suddenly outside her local grocery shop, bumping into her with enough speed for her to drop a squash.

He doesn't seem to even notice. Hair unkempt, shirt not tucked into his trousers, cheeks very red and another swollen lip... Oh yeah. This must be after their visit to New New New New Mars.

"You told me we'd never!" he proclaims, pointing a finger at her indignantly.

"I lied for the good of the universe," she replies calmly, going for the sort of excuse he's so fond of. "Couldn't very well tell you and have you change history and not shag me. That would end the universe. It was shag or universal disaster. And also I lied to get you into bed."

"Martha Jones," he says sternly, and she crosses her arms and raises an eyebrow at him. He grins suddenly, quite madly. "I really like you."

And then he's vanished around a corner, leaving her to pick up the squash and hum a little all the way home, wondering how it's possible to feel so free and so sad at the same time.

II

It's the year after that she seems him for the final time. She's at the hospital working night shift, and when she feels like she's being watched for an hour straight, she knows he's there. But she doesn't go looking for him, going about her work as she always does. A life to save there, a life that can't be saved there, pains to ease in-between.

When she finally takes a breather at the balcony as the first signs of morning to come are appearing, she's not surprised to hear someone else come out and join her.

"Doctor Jones," the Doctor says, and she turns sideways to look at him.

"Mr Smith," she replies, and he smiles a little, if distantly.

"Are you leaving me for this?" he asks after a moment, elbows resting against the railing.

Ah. So it's that time now.

"It was a life on your terms, Doctor. It was wonderful and sometimes terrifying, but it was always your terms. I need my own. I..."

No, she doesn't need to tell him how she feels. He knows.

"Yeah," she says softly. "For this. For..."

"Life day by day," he interrupts.

She doesn't say anything, and they watch the illusion of the sun beginning to crawl up over the horizon, when it's really the Earth hurling through space. There's always that gap between what is seen and what is, and she looks at him and wishes for a moment she could tell him to change history and never let her go.

But no. She can miss what she had and need what she has at the same time, she's learned.

He probably wouldn't do it anyway. Probably.

She knows very soon, he'll go to tell her - that younger, sillier, wiser, many-days-to-go-her - goodbye and her claim to him will be over by own choice, but for now, they just stand there, an August day in London about to start.

But not quite yet.

Twenty-one years after she said one goodbye, she knows this is a second.

II

FIN


End file.
